LESSONS LEARNED IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN THE UNIVERSITY - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

LESSONS LEARNED IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN THE UNIVERSITY ENVIRONMENT: THE IMSC EXPERIENCE

Isaac Maya, Ph.D., P.E

Director, Industry and Technology Transfer Programs 213-740-2592, imaya@imsc.usc.edu

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

Integrated Media Systems Center Viterbi School of Engineering University of Southern California

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

Integrated Media Systems Center

NSF

NSF Engineering Research Center:

a partnership in pursuit of research and innovation in multimedia and immersive technologies and their applications

28 Investigators and 260 students in partnership with: National Science Foundation University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering

Ranked 8th in US, $115M/yr in grant funding

Annenberg Center for Communication

Commercial Partners

Computer Hardware and Software Aircraft, Aerospace, Defense Petroleum, Oil, Gas Telecommunications Entertainment

Other Government Agencies

DARPA, NASA, JPL, NIMA, ONR, U.S. Army Downtown LA IMSC Headquarters

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

Education

• 209 students graduated with IMSC providing funding, classes, and

research aspects of their education experience

• 112 with PhD, 82 with MS, and 15 with BS
• IMSC created six academic programs
• 3 MS programs with 454 students enrolled (152 graduates)
• 2 UG minor programs with 76 students enrolled (121 graduates)
• BSEE (IMS) enrollment starts F03
• IMSC gave UG research fellowships to 44 students
• Created 23 new courses for IMSC and SoE programs
• Human Factors in Integrated Media Systems
• Integrated Media Systems - SAI project course
• Engineering Approaches to Music Perception and Cognition
• Intro to Art and Technology - SoE/FA course

Faculty and Academia

• IMSC has a high quality array of 28 investigators – 14 of whom (~ 50%) were

sought specifically because of IMSC

• working with 166 PhD, 56 MS, and 38 UG students.
• Investigators come primarily from EE and CS – others from Psychology,

Industrial and System Eng., School of Cinema/Television, Annenberg School for Comm., School of Gerontology, Biomedical Engineering, and the Information Sciences Institute

• Two IMSC investigators have PFF awards
• Eight IMSC faculty have CAREER awards (2 CAREER awards this year)
• Alexander Sawchuk elected to Board of Directors of the Optical Society of

America

• Gerard Medioni named a Fellow of Institute of Electrical and Electronics

Engineers

• Mathieu Desbrun received the 2003 ACM SIGGRPH Significant New

Researcher Award

• IMSC faculty published 52 peer-reviewed journal articles and 184 peer-

reviewed conference papers

• articles actually appearing in print over a 12 month period (2002-2003)

Strategic Plan

Driving

Application Research Projects

Engineering

and Integration

Basic

Research

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

Research Highlights

immersive audio

multichannel and HRTF approaches - holistic DSP approach

streaming servers and multimedia databases

distributed and scalable streaming architecture, immersidata analysis and

query

computer vision

computational framework for grouping based on tensor voting, tracking for

augmented realities and SFX

graphics & animation

3D DSP mesh processing, compression, mesh operations, hair modeling

and animation

multimodal emotive, 3D interfaces

Speech and dialog, vision sensing of body and hands, facial expressions

analysis and expressive avatars

virtual reality and simulations

applications to psychology (ADD diagnosis), and user studies

IMSC has produced ground breaking results and fundamental research in:

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

T he or y of Pe r c e ptual and Cognitive Ple asur e E motional E xpr e ssions Use r State Se nsing and Pe r c e ptual Use r Inte rfa c e s Vir tual E nvir

• nme nts

for Pe r for manc e T e sting and T r aining Infor mation Inte gr ation Imme r si- data Conte nt E xtr ac tion & Analysis Customize d Que r ying & Re nde r ing Imme r sive Me dia Re al-T ime Stor age & Re tr ie val Re mote Me dia Imme r sion Softwar e Ar c hite c tur e for Imme r si- pr e se nc e Imme r siNE T

• fusion
• f inte r

ne t and c ine ma 2020Classr

• om –

imme r sion, author ing, and asse ssme nt Inte rAc t – aware c omputing and multimodal inte r ac tion Imme r sive audio Spe e c h Re c ognition and Synthe sis F ac ial Ge stur e Analysis and Animation Robust Vision Analysis Digital Ge ome tr y Pr

• c e ssing

Multime dia Ne twor ks, T r ansmission, and Comm- unic ation Ultr a Wide band Wir e le ss Compr e ssion

IMSC Research Program

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

Enabling the Vision: Application Research Projects

ImmersiNet – Entertainment

• Prof. Alexander Sawchuk (EE)
• Prof. Roger Zimmermann (CS)

InterAct – Communication

• Prof. Shri Narayanan (EE)
• Prof. Isaac Cohen (CS)

2020Classroom – Education

• Prof. Cyrus Shahabi (CS)
• Prof. Chris Kyriakakis (EE)

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

2020Classroom

• The future of immersive technologies

as applied to learning, encompassing:

Software and hardware

architecture for distributed learning

Investigate innovative methods for

student/teacher interaction with the curriculum

Dynamic curriculum content,

specifically designed for this unique immersive platform

Development and assessment of

high fidelity presence in learning

Our two testbed sites are used to

study the requirements for interface design, computational complexity, visual and aural fidelity, network performance, and data acquisition of presence for learning applications

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

InterAct: Communications and Collaboration

• Media-rich integration of sensory modes to support human tasks

and communication

Multimodal interfaces – speech synthesis and recognition, vision

tracking and interpretation of human behavior, facial gesture analysis and avatar rendering, haptics, ...

Tele-immersion – Hi-fidelity low-latency robust communication

• ver IP networks, graceful incorporation of PDA or low-BW

3D/4D visualization and modeling of time-varying surfaces,

volumes, and imagery

Data fusion – 3D models and video streams and sensor data Data streaming, synchronization, analysis, and query

Immersed in a college football game Doctors assisting in a remote procedure Business people negotiating like they are in the same room Students visiting an aquarium a thousand miles away

Applications

ImmersiNet: P2P Streaming Media over IP Networks

• A fusion of internet browsing with a theater-like

immersive experience

• HD Video at up to 45 Mbits/sec
• 10.2 channel Immersive audio (12 Mbits/sec)
• Steaming on-demand over the Internet
• Recent accomplishments:

Bing Theater I2 Conf Live Duet HD video NWS

Streaming media servers and recorders Immersive audio capture and rendering Protocols for error management Synchronization

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

IMSC Industrial Members and Collaborators

KDDI Olympus

Ja pa n

E ve rF

• c us

III IT RI

T aiwan

BT G

UK

Mic rosoft

WA

Se e Ca lifornia Ma p Colla bora tions with Gove rnme nt Ag e nc ie s a nd F

• unda tions:

US Army DARPA, ONR NASA, NIMA T

• yota F
• unda tion

E astman Kodak

NY

Inte l

OR

NVIS

VA

NCR

OH

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

Silic o n Valley H

• llywo o d

L

• s Angeles

Silic on Va lle y

• Conc e ptL

a bs

• F
• X Pa lo Alto L

a bora tory

• He wle tt- Pa c kar

d

• IBM
• L
• c khe e d Ma rtin
• Che vronT

e xa c o

USC IMSC

IMSC Industrial Members and Collaborators

L

• s Ange le s/ Sa n Die go
• JPL
• L
• rd F
• unda tion
• L
• s Ange le s T

ime s

• Northrop Grumma n
• T

MH Corpora tion

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

IMSC PROJECT MANAGEMENT APPROACH

Organizational and Management Evolution Project Initiation

IMSC Vision + Faculty and Industry Research

Interests => Projects of Mutual Interest

Milestones and Schedules Scope <=> Requirements Monitoring and Control Intellectual Property Protection Lessons Learned

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

TRADITIONAL FUNCTIONAL ORGANIZATION IS USEFUL FOR MANAGING INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH EFFORTS

immersive audio streaming servers multimedia databases computer vision graphics & animation multimodal emotive, 3D interfaces virtual reality and simulations

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

INTEGRATION OF R&D RESULTS INTO PROJECTS REQUIRES TRADITIONAL PM TOOLS

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

PROJECT MANAGEMENT HAS EVOLVED INTO A WEAK-MATRIX ORGANIZATION

Sensory Comm Info Mgt HF MIE

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

MILESTONES AND SCHEDULES

Normally driven by Academic Calendar

Fall and Spring Semesters, Summer months Graduate Student hires

Annual site-visit review IMSC instituted additional “major” calendar events

2 Scientific Advisory Board meetings Early Fall & Spring semester researcher retreats After-site-visit analysis

Additional 1-hour weekly Center-wide progress

discussion meetings

Schedule granularity controlled by PM

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

SCOPE <=> REQUIREMENTS

To achieve Project Vision, early meetings used to

clarify Vision, Scope and research requirements

What are we sure of? (Failure is not an option) What are extensions? (What is go-no go?) What is really hard? What are some expected problems of

integration with what you’re sure of?

Uncompromising on Quality of Deliverables –

World-class research, innovative, new, …

Risk – doing things never done before, so see

above questions, identify risks plus back-up plan

5-Year Plan

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

PROJECT MONITORING AND CONTROL

Weekly or bi-weekly formal Project Team meetings

Agendas a must Round table discussions Assignments/names Follow-up items Attendance “required”

Periodic Technology Demonstrations and White Papers (in

addition to journal publications)

Industry visits Monthly Open House demonstrations

“Management by Embarrassment”

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e F o u n d a t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g R e s e a r c h C e n t e r

PM LESSONS LEARNED

Must have Faculty buy-in on projects, brainstorming

and iterating on project selection and budgets

Must assign lead PM or designee on each project Must adapt PM tools and techniques to university

environment (e.g., quality, milestones and schedules, requirements/specifications, WBS detail level, etc.)

Must have regular meetings, communicate progress

and reasons to justify “hitting those milestones”

Must do appropriate risk assessment (after all, this is

research) and have viable back-up plans